Hello. Going to work on heading up an alt so I can be a backup healer for mythic plus. I don’t particularly love healing but I want to find one that I am decent with. I have a lvl 60 shammy that I can gear for resto. I also have a 50 holy priest that I can lvl and gear. I won’t be doing any hard keys under 5-6 for sure. Just wanted to pick whichever one is easier to learn. Thanks!
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for keys that low, play whatever you find fun. the only one i would definitely avoid at low levels is disc.
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Resto shammy is the easiest healer imo. You do tons of healing, have multiple CDs on a shortish cd, you bring lust, you can summon dwayne the rock johnson to save your tank, and the most important thing is you have an interrupt.
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Interesting. Of the 3 healers I play most often, I find Resto Shaman to be the most difficult. Firstly, the cast times are agonizingly long. Secondly, Shamans have a ton of utility. That’s a good thing, but knowing how to make the best use of it all isn’t something you pick up quickly.
For M+, you never cast chain heal or healing wave. You spam riptide and healing surge across your party. Going oom isn’t much of an issue since you can drink frequently. You use cloudburst on CD for some nice AoE heals and ascendence when there’s a ton of group-wide damage going out.
I’ve seen Restoration Shaman being quite effective, on top of being capable of DPS too. Another is Mistweaver but this is just a take because my friend is HIGH up on the healing charts every time and also DPS as well. But if I were to pick, Restoration Shaman first.
As for easiest… Ehh…
Holy priest is by far the easiest,
If you’re pugging a lot then shaman would be the way to go, they have an interrupt and a few oh lord buttons for when your pug group is bad. With lust you’d be more favored than the other meta healers.
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Resto Shaman or Holy Priest. Shaman is a true pug hero with interrupt, spirit link and bloodlust and Priest has no shortage of juicy heals for every situation.
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How fortuitous that your two options are also the two best at the moment.
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The easiest is the one you learn. Read a guide and practice applying the things the guide says are important, and it is easy to play.
How do you define easy? All in my opinion: The healer that has the least pressure on quick reaction times is rdruid because you usually get your hots rolling and they do about half the work. The healer that has the least responsibilities is anything but rshaman which has to interrupt and keep track of hero in addition to the regular dps and cc expectations healers have. The healer that has the easiest time getting into keys is resto shaman or holy paladin. The healer that has the least clunky rotation is holy priest.
Resto Shamans can carry a group more than any other healer but you also have to be really good. Probably don’t choose disc priest because it’s currently the worst M+ healer and it’s even worse if you’re not really good.
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What’s a good healing class for someone who’s never healed and don’t know what addons to get.
You really waited 6 months to say that?
Plenty of people play using no addons. If you have gone this far without them then you can continue as such. I do good with resto sham. I liked the ele resto (also called elerest) style the best. You cant really do that anymore but in case you go to Classic, good way to set that up is to go ele spec in full resto healing gear and gems, enchants. Will make you quite the formidable force.
In retail just a reg resto sham is okay for now. I dont know how to play a druid unless it is boomkin. So dont know anything about healing for that. Really like my shammy heals.
BUT different things for different people. Just because 99% of us list the exact same thing as S or S+ tier, your S tier may be different based on playstyle. Try out a few things. See what works the best. Your best may be someone elses worst.
Easiest healer IMO is holy priest. They have a thousand buttons to heal your group, they are strictly reactive so you don’t need to know the fight or predict incoming damage ahead of time, there’s no weird class gimmick to keep track of (outside of stuff like the flash heal legendary), and they’re highly favored right now.
I would never heal without at least a party frames addon but hey, you do you I guess. Mouseover macros are your friend though. Makes healing 1000000x easier and faster.
Others have already said this so I will concur that since your desired key levels are around 5-6 then you can take just about anything you want into M+ at that level.
You don’[t start to see significant composition and viability needs until around 10-15 and even then you can still probably get away with just about anything albeit maybe have a more difficult time than certain specs.
I consider Resto Shaman to be one of the best for M+ but I also think they are super difficult to play well. They truly have just about every bit of utility you could need and want for M+ but I think that increases the complexity. I struggled to pick it up during BFA and I find to prefer Resto Druid so much more.
But definitely give it all a try. It’s good to experiment and play what is comfortable for you.
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This is me honestly. I can’t get into the class fantasy of throwing water on injured people which slows me down a little maybe lol, but also I just find rsham slightly overwhelming. Too many buttons to press, or something. I’m not sure why I can’t really wrap my head around their ‘style’ of play. I’ve always been hpal or rdruid since TBC so you could say maybe it’s a familiarity issue but stuff like priest holy/disc was very easy for me to pick up, as was MW, while rsham just does not click for me no matter how many times I level one up.
Which is a shame really because that interrupt is so darn juicy. 
I will say Shaman is a great pick. You have a lot of tools for everything. Your DPS spells can contribute meaningful DPS when you get comfortable doing so as well.
Shamans are largely reactive healers. Bars go Down. They make the bars go back up. Their heals are pretty straight forward, and they have some synergy with riptide and healing wave/surge. They have a ranged interrupt. Insta cast ranged spells (Frost shock). Earthbind, Capacitor, Tremor totems are useful. They also have the ohh $%&! buttons. Spirit Link, Healing Tide Totem. And an ank for a personal Brez.
One other thing, is even though their mastery isnt amazing, it is one that helps newer healers a ton. Your heals, will heal for more, the lower people’s health is. So it naturally is training wheels for healing.
Also, in the past few expacs, shamans have been the S Tier healer for the first two patches and then, still staying up at the top till the end.
I do like resto druid personally. They are a little more proactive healing. They take a little more mana management. Shapeshifting to DPS isnt that fun. But they can do some pretty absurd healing throughput though.
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They are tastes of each one, for my part I quite like Rdruid along with healers like Paladin and MW, because they have a fun gameplay (unfortunately fun is complicated). So I’d say it’s fun to dp as a druid, but not comparable to Rshammys. And on the subject, I would say the Hpriest and then the Rshammy (thanks to the fact that the latter is easier thanks to its tier).
I always feel really powerful when playing a holy paladin even if I know I’m probably playing super suboptimally (or at least my healing feels powerful—holy paladin dps feels like crap)